quorum call:

mr. cornyn: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican whip.

mr. wiern: madam president, four years ago mr. cornyn: madam president, four years ago members of this senate came to the floor every a day to talk about america's health care system. i remember distinctly being here on christmas eve, 2009, at 7:00 in the morning, witnessing a party-line vote on obamacare, all of our democratic friends voted for it, all republicans voted against it. i guess the most charitable thing i could say our domestic friends actually thought it would work while republicans were skeptics about this big-government takeover of one-sixth of our national economy. well, four years later the cost of obamacare has become abundantly clear. i don't think it's an exaggeration to say that obamacare is the biggest case of

consumer fraud ever perpetrated in this country. a law that was supposed to expand coverage to those without it has instead caused millions of people with coverage to lose theirs, a law that was supposed to improve patient access has instead resulted in smaller provider networks where people are restricted in terms of the doctors and the hospitals they can go see. making it much more likely that people will not be able to keep their doctor should they want them. a law that was supposed to bend the cost curve down has instead caused individual and family premiums to skyrocket, and here hearing story after story that even if the premiums are lower, what happens is due to co-pays and deductibles people are finding themselves with thousands and thousands of dollars of deductibles they

didn't previously have meaning it's more money out of their pocket before the insurance actually kicks in. and we were told this was supposed to make medicaid the safety net program for the most disadvantaged economically among us, and medicare for seniors, we were told it was supposed to make them stronger. instead, it made them weaker. a law that was supposed to help our economy has instead hurt our economy. by discouraging full-time job creation, because if you have a full-time job your employer has got to pay for the full obamacare price tag, so what they've been doing is moving people from full-time work to part-time work. indeed, a number of labor organization leaders went to the white house a few months ago and they called the implementation of obamacare a nightmare. saying it had made full-time work part-time work.

but it's worse than that. obamacare has hampered medical innovation by taxing the very people that build medical devices here in america causing them to move those businesses off shore or simply to cut down their hiring. and it's placed costly new burdens on small businesses. the entities that produce as many as 70% of the new jobs in america. it's not the fortune 500 that create the vast majority of jobs in america, it's the small mom-and-pop operations, the entrepreneur who create those jobs and that's where obamacare hits the hardest. it's no wonder our economy continues to struggle. it's no wonder the labor participation rate, the number of people who are actually in the work force is at a 35-year low. people have given up looking for work and that's an american

tragedy. as i stand here today, the broken promises of obamacare are causing enormous distress and financial hardship for people all across my state of texas and all across america. it's undenial -- undeniable that millions of americans have lost their insurance because of obamacare. despite president obama's almost daily res the nation that if you like what you have, you can keep it. efts making that promise again as late as 2012 and we know it's not true. we know it's not true. and he knew it wasn't true. as early as 2010 when we debated some restrictive grandfathering regulations from the department of health and human services, senator enzi, who is ranking member of the help committee

tried to get it fixed and again we saw a party-line vote, all of our democratic friends said no, let's not provide flexibility for the grandfathering provisions, let's maintain the provisions which have now resulted in more than five until people getting notices that the policies they have even though they like them they cannot no longer have. that's why i've said this is one of the biggest cases of consumer fraud ever perpetrated in the united states by virtue of its scope and the audacity with which these promises were made time and time again which are demonstrably not true, they're false. we know that obamacare is leading to a dramatic spike in insurance premiums for many people who buy their insurance in the individual market. you'll recall that during and after the 2008 presidential

election, president obama repeatedly told americans that his health care plan would reduce their health care premiums for a family of four by about $2,500. i don't kno -- i don't know where he came up with that number but it turned out to be just another broken promise. according to the kaiser family foundation, annual premiums for employer-based family health insurance increased by nearly $3,000 between 2009 and 2013. in other words, the president was $5,500 wrong. rather than going down $2,500, they went up $3,000. for that matter, a recent study by the manhattan institute estimated that obamacare will drive up individual premiums by an average of 41%. now i don't know many

hardworking american families that can afford a 41% increase in their health care costs. from a bill -- from a law where they were promised that health care would be more affordable. the single-biggest increase, according to this study, will be in the majority leader's home state of nevada where individual premiums are projected to rise by an astounding 179% the increases in new mexico, arkansas and north carolina are 142% -- that would be new mexico. 138% -- that would be arkansas. and 136% in north carolina. what do each of these states have in common? well, they're represented by senators who voted for this bill

perhaps believing that what the president said would be true. but their constituents are having to pay the price. such premium increases are particularly burdensome for senior citizens and other folks on a fixed income. for example, in texas, in copper canyon, texas, recently, one of my constituents wrote to me and said that because of obamacare, her monthly premiums were increasing by $200, which is only $27 less than her monthly social security income. in other words, it takes up almost the entire amount of her social security check for her to purchase this insurance. that's wrong. in addition to premium hikes, many americans entering the obamacare exchanges are facing higher deductibles. i mentioned that a moment ago.

in a front-page story just yesterday in the "wall street journal," it was reported that many obamacare deductibles are so high that people with modest incomes may not be able to afford the portion of medical expenses that insurance doesn't cover. what's that all about? in fact, according to one study, the average do you believe for for -- the average deductible on the obamacare exchange is 42% hire than the average deductible for individual health insurance earlier this year before most of obamacare kicked in. 42% higher deductible. and as we know, many of these deductibles we're hearing are in the $4,000 to $5,000 for individuals and up to $10,000 for married couples.

i don't know many households in texas or across america that can absorb $10,000 in a deductible for your health insurance policy. certainly that doesn't strike me as a success if the purpose is to cover health care costs and to prevent people from suffering economic hardship as a result. that strikes me as an epic failure. in other words, obamacare is making it significantly harder for many americans to pay their bills, to buy groceries, and take care of their families. again, i said many times before, it didn't have to be this way. it didn't have to be this way. in 2009, polls demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of americans who had health insurance liked what they had, and they were broadly satisfied with it. that's why the president said, i assume, that if you like what

you have, you can keep it. because about 90% of the respondents said we like what we have. so if you're the president trying to sell this affordable care act, so-called, you wouldn't want to scare those 90% of people into thinking you can't keep what you have even though you like it. and so you misrepresent what you're selling. you tell people, no, you can keep what you have. and you know what? your premiums are going to go down and it's all going to be all right. if we had focused on those people who either did not have coverage or who had inadequate coverage, obviously a smaller subset of americans than that whole he country, if we focused on them and dealt with their challenges in purchasing health insurance, we could have done

much better. there were millions more who had low-quality medicaid coverage that many doctors refused to accept, because in my state medicaid pays a doctor about 50 cents on the dollar compared to private insurance. and many doctors said, look, i want to see more medicaid patients but i simply can't afford to do it. i've got to opt for higher-paying private insurance patients. and we know that medicare was facing a fast-approaching bankruptcy date. what congress could have done, what we should have done is to enact sensible, narrowly drawn, targeted tproerls, number one -- targeted reforms aimed at improving the coverage options for each of these groups and strengthening and preserving he medicare and medicaid. we needed to bring down the costs, not jack the costs up. i mean, if you ask most people what the biggest problem they

have with their health insurance, they say it costs too much, and we've made it worse. it's worse, not better. to bring down the costs, we could have allowed people to buy health insurance across state lines. i know that doesn't sound like a panacea, but most states have captive insurance markets, and many state legislatures, including the texas legislature, have mandated coverage that many people simply don't want but it adds to the cost of their health coverage. so i could have the choice to buy insurance across state tphraoeupbs we enact this had reform and say i like the insurance coverage in wisconsin, louisiana or somewhere else. if that suited my needs, i could buy it there and we would have a true competitive market, and people would compete based on quality and price. but we don't have that now.

what else could we have done? we could have expanded the use of tax-free health savings accounts paired with high-deductible plans like the kind i talked to a number of my constituents in austin, texas, about who are employed at whole foods. they cover roughly 80% of the out-of-pocket costs for health insurance through health savings accounts and a high deductible insurance. the employees -- i think it's still the case, it was then -- still vote on an annual basis what kind of coverage they want. and they vote for this type of coverage because they're satisfied with it and it gives them a sense of ownership which is actually true that the money put into a health savings account they get to keep, and if they don't use it on their health care they get to save it like an ira or something like that. it also changes the calculation. it makes people much smarter shoppers, and it comes farther, moves us farther along to a

system where people can shop for their health insurance and their health services like they do everything else, and it will bring down costs and it will improve quality of service as a result of competition for that business. and we could cracked down on frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits which caused defensive. think about it, if you're a doctor and you're worried about losing everything you've worked a lifetime to achieve in terms of your assets and your medical practice, the last thing you want to do is to be subjected to a lotterytype lawsuit. so the easiest thing for those doctors to do -- i know they don't do it on purpose -- but is to make a decision to provide a test or treatment not so much based on your clinical opinion but based on your desire to not be sued and not to be

second-guessed two years later when somebody comes in and said you should have done this, srurbd done that. the temptation is to do everything and to run up the costs of health coverage. these are just a few examples. by lowering costs across the board, these are forms, like i talked about, which the president and his political party rejected. we could have helped people who already had coverage. and we could have helped those who previously could not have afforded coverage. now some people have said -- i've, if i've heard it one time, i've heard it a thousand times -- they said we need obamacare because people with preexisting conditions couldn't get coverage. that is a serious concern. but we already have in place high-risk pools in the states. and if we needed to help those states provide coverage to people with those high-risk

health conditions, we could have done it a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot more efficiently than creating this huge monstrosity, this huge bureaucracy, this huge expense known as obamacare. so we could have increased funding to the high-risk pools that were already operating in about 3 dozen u.s. states. the irony is that the people in the high risk pool in texas, they got a letter, said your coverage has been canceled, effective december 31, the very people obamacare was supposed to help. your coverage is canceled because obamacare kicks in january 1. but because people were worried about their ability to get on the exchanges due to the web site problems, the state, texas legislature, the texas department of insurance decided

to extend the coverage of the high risk health insurance pools in texas so people wouldn't fall through the cracks because of this train wreck of a rollout of obamacare. and how about medicaid? we hear a lot of discussion about medicaid. i've already mentioned that medicaid only reimburses doctors about half what a private insurance policy would so a lot of doctors can't afford to see a new medicaid patient. in texas, only one doctor out of three will see a new medicaid patient, for that reason. it's not because they don't want to. it is because they can't afford to do so. we could have made it a lot easier for states to bolster their medicaid program and deliver targeted policies that would allow them to manage medicaid populations. for example, create a medical home, for example. but because of the red tape that washington refused to cut,

medicaid ends up in many instances being an appearance of coverage, but you can't find a doctor that will see you. what good is that? that's, to me, a sleight of hand and part of the reason why i call this one of the biggest cases of consumer fraud in american history. and to help medicare patients -- those are of course our seniors -- we could have increased private competition and patient choice by kpwraeugs kpwraeugs -- embracing the choice model chosen by president clinton's medicare commission in 1999. the reforms i've just outlined would have given us a genuine national marketplace for individual health insurance. unfortunately, our friends across the aisle and our

president decided to take a different path with the affordable care act, or obamacare. unfortunately, the folks who designed obamacare consciously chose to destroy the individual market and force millions of people to pay for washington-mandated coverage they didn't need and they didn't want. and at a price they can't afford. rather than adopt measures to bring down the costs and coverage issues for a subset of the population, the roughly 10% who weren't among those 90% who said they liked what they had, the president and his allies chose to wreck the existing health care system. to wreck it, to make it worse, not better.

as a result, they made the cost problem worse. they've jeopardized physician access for millions of americans who like their current health plans and wish to keep it. and, of course, now the administration is pwoefgt that the web site -- is boating that the web site is mostly fixed, and indeed by most objective reports, people aren't experiencing the same sort of epic failure they did when they first tried to get into the obama exchanges. but at this point, the president and his allies have lost all credibility with regard to other aspects of obamacare which i have mentioned, and fixing the web site won't fix the underlying deficiencies of obamacare. these aren't glitches. these were baked in the cake. these were designed. this is the way obamacare was created and was supposed to work. notwithstanding the fact that the american people had been sold a bill of goods to the

contrary. indeed, the only way to solve america's biggest health care challenges is a do-over, to replace obamacare with the sort of patient-centered reforms that i mentioned a few moments ago. obamacare may be a complete disaster, but it's not too late for us to work together to fix what's broken and to start over. madam president, i yield the floor.

mr. barrasso: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent that the

quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: the senate is not presently in a quorum call. mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. madam president, with less than two weeks remaining for the deadline for people who need to sign up for health insurance that starts for them to be insured for january 1, there is a significant amount of anger as well as anxiety across the country. the web site where people are supposed to go to buy that insurance has been plagued with problems that everyone in the country seems to knee about, and that has caused huge amounts of anxiety. i heard about it last week in wyoming, i hear about it on capitol hill with staff members, and i hear it pretty much anywhere i go. what people have been learning is that the problems with the web site is just actually the tip of the iceberg. the obama administration has been saying that it's been fixed, that the problems with this health law are fine, that

everything is good, that people are -- a majority of people are having good experiences. i remember listening to the president not long ago sitting with bill clinton saying it's easier to use than amazon. well, that's not what the american people found. he also said cheaper than your cell phone bill. he said you will be able to keep your doctor if you like it. the law continues to leave so many americans struggling, struggling with higher costs, with greater confusion and really with a lot less confidence in the administration. people all around the country are worrying if the administration even knows what it's doing. so when i talk about the web site being just a tip of the iceberg, people around the country are running into higher premiums, canceled coverage, finding out that they can't keep their doctor. they are running into fraud and identity theft issues and higher issues in terms of higher co-pays and out-of-pocket costs and deductibles. people at home in wyoming -- and i went not just around the communities in the state and traveled to a number of different communities, but i also went to my own medical

office where i practiced as an orthopedic surgeon at casper orthopedics for 24 years, and people were telling me how worried they were about the higher costs they are seeing regarding paying for insurance for next year. i got a letter from one man in cody, wyoming. he talked about the rates that he's been quoted are going to go up from about $860 a month that he pays now -- he has a family of four -- to $2,400 a month. $860 to $2,400 a month. he said i'm not sure what planet they think i live on, he said, but there is no way i can spend more than half of my monthly income on insurance. well, i hear the same thing from people all around wyoming. people are having the same sticker shock all over the country. now, we know that more than 4.7 million americans, 32 different states are being told that they can't keep the insurance that they have. and when you take a look at the

map, madam president, you know that we don't have the numbers yet on certain numbers of the states, including the state of wisconsin. we don't have illinois. we don't have ohio. we don't have texas. we don't have virginia. so we really don't know how many people have lost their -- their coverage, but we know at least 4.7 million americans were told that they can't keep the insurance they had, in spite of what the president may have promised them. so now what they have to do is buy new washington-approved health coverage that really may not be the right coverage for them and may likely cost more than they were paying before. millions of americans are going to be forced to use money that in the past was used to pay rent or put their children through school or to invest in -- in their communities or in a business, to help make repairs to the house, and now that money's going to go to pay for higher premiums as well as the incredible high deductibles that people are seeing related to the health care law.

it's -- i mean, it's interesting looking through the papers, this was yesterday's "wall street journal," monday, december 9, above the fold, right here front page." deductibles fuel new worries of health law sticker shock." the article says that the average individual deductible for what is called a bronze plan on the exchange -- that's, of course, the lower priced coverage, it's $5,081 a year, according to a new report on insurance offerings in 34 of the 36 states that rely on that federally run online market. this is 42% higher, "the wall street journal" reports, than the average deductible of over $3,500 for an individual purchase plan in 2013, which is, of course, before much of the federal law took place. so what people are seeing in "the wall street journal" reports there above the -- above

the fold on the first page is higher deductibles by a lot. it's not just the "wall street journal," the new york times yesterday robert pare's article on health insurance, premiums may be low, but other costs can be high. it says as consumers dig into the details, dig into the details, something this body never did. members of that part of the body who voted for this health care law never did dig into the details. it says as consumers dig into the details, they're finding that the deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs are often much higher than what is typical in employer-sponsored health plans, the plans that many of these people have had in the past. so what we're seeing is not just the higher costs, not just the higher deductibles, the higher co-pays, there is also a lot of confusion about the health care

web site itself, and that's, i think, only going to get worse. ten weeks after the web site launched, there is still an awful lot that's broken, including the parts that actually get people the insurance that they think they signed up for. a number of my staff have applied, and they believe they have signed up for health insurance. they are not sure. they haven't yet gotten confirmation. i know that members on capitol hill who have staff signing up are experiencing that same thing. you know, last month, one of the officials from the department of health and human services testified in the house of representatives that as much as 40% of this web site's system still hasn't even been built yet. the web site still has trouble transmitting information to the insurance companies once someone has chosen a plan. the web site was down again earlier today. it still hasn't figured out how to automatically pay the portion of premiums covered by government subsidy.

there are still many, many security holes that can be exploited by con artists, by hackers. certain branches of the government have been warning citizens to be cautious when going on the web site because of the concerns about exploitation, people who are trying to use these in a fraudulent way. and then you hear the administration who is bragging. i mean, it's really sad that almost nine weeks after the web site opened, the administration is now bragging that it only has an error rate of 10% on one important step of the web site. one in ten is not -- their error rate. this is a president who said that the web site was going to be running like amazon.com. he said that three or four days before the web site opened. now nine weeks later, he's delighted that the error rate is still one out of ten.

does the president actually believe that amazon would accept a 10% error rate in their customers not being able to finish their purchase? all of these flaws and failures have led to a dramatic loss, i believe, of confidence by the american people in their government, and according to a new gallup poll, 52% of americans are in favor of scaling back the health care law or repealing it entirely. people continue to turn against the law for a number of reasons, and it's not the web site. it's the higher premiums, it's the canceled coverage, it's can't keep their doctor, fraud and identity theft, higher co-pays, higher deductibles, and confusion about what's going to go wrong next because so many things that the president and his administration have said, have looked into the camera, told the american people would be one way turned out to be something very different. there have just been so many changing stories coming out of the white house. the president said if you like your health insurance, you could keep your health insurance.

then he actually said, period, a punctuation mark. that was it, no ifs, ands or buts. that was it. people know all across the country, those who voted for him, those who didn't, know what the president said wasn't true. the president said if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. well, on sunday, one of the architects of obamacare went on fox news and admitted also that that wasn't true. this is dr. ezekiel emanuel, brother of rahm emmanuel, former chief of staff of the white house, a former medicine professor. what he says is if you like your doctor and you want to keep your doctor, you can pay more for insurance that includes your doctor. a lot of places, you can't even buy insurance that will cover that doctor. this isn't at all what the president promised. and it's interesting in the -- even the paper "the financial times" yesterday, health insurance cut costs by excluding

top hospitals. so you can't even go to the hospitals. there is a picture here of m.d. anderson cancer center from the university of texas. plan will not cover treatment at houston cancer center. well, so if we have somebody who has lost their insurance who has been going to that cancer center where their doctors are and they are losing their insurance on january 1, not only can't you keep your doctor, you can't keep your hospital. we see children's hospitals around the country, people that are not going to be included in these exchanges. children with leukemia come january 1 losing their doctor, losing their hospital. but that's what the president and that's what the democrats in this body who voted for this health care law have given to the american people. you know, just before thanksgiving, the obama administration announced that it would have to delay a health insurance exchange that was supposed to let small businesses shop for insurance.

i remember hearing speeches on this floor about small businesses and being able to find affordable insurance. well, it turns out once again the administration knew at least six weeks before that they were going to have to delay the program. did they admit it to the american people? did they tell the truth? no. they waited. one broken promise after another, one statement after another, the administration knows is not true. so is it a surprise then that the president of the united states is viewed as untruthful by a majority of the people of this country? it's a terrible situation for anyone to put their country in. you know, back when we first started talking about the health care law, republicans offered ideas for how to give people what they really wanted, which was reform that lowered costs and improved access to care. that's what people were concerned about. so many of the complaints we've heard around the country had to do with the cost of care. president obama and democrats in congress refused to listen,

ignored all the warning signs, used raw majority power to force this bad law on all the american people. i remember the vote in this body christmas eve morning, voting on a health care law, watched it crammed through, party-line votes, and now democrats in the senate decided to make another power play and broke the rules of the senate just this -- a couple of weeks ago to change the rules of the senate. they took a drastic and unwarranted step so that they could have the power once again to force more bad ideas like the obama health care law onto the american people. they say, we don't need the 60 votes now. all we need is a simple majority. let's change the way the senate has run for well over 100 years because, once again, the democrats say, weigh know better than the american people. we know better than you. that's what the president said with his health care law. and now the american people are

realizing, well, what they knew all along: this isn't what they wanted with health care reform. regrettably, it's what they're living with now and are seeing the higher premiums, the canceled coverage, losing their doctor, the fraud and identity theft, higher co-pays, higher deductibles, and it's interesting even today in "the washington post," front page, above the fold, "under health law, insurers limiting drug coverage. costs may soar." and it talks about many different ailments including for those with h.i.v. that's -- that's a result of the health care law. if this health care law had not been passed, forced daven the throats of the american people, with the president telling one falsehood after another designed to mislead the american people, you would never have seen a headline like this today. if president obama really wants to help the american people, he's going to sit down with

republicans and talk about the real issues to reduce costs, to get rid of all of this confusion that he and the democrats have caused and to restore people's confidence in america as well as in him. there's a better way. republicans agree we need to reform america's health care system. we think that those reforms could have been done without the kind of harm caused by the president's health care law. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, once again i come to the floor to discuss the negative impacts that obamacare is having on my constituents in south dakota and the countless americans across the nation. since this health care law was enacted in 2010, i've come to the floor on numerous occasions to discuss a number of promises

the president made to the american people that have been broken. my colleagues and i have highlighted the fact that the president's promise, if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan, period, simply isn't true. reports indicate that more than five million americans already, already have received cancellation notices from their insurance companies in much of the obamacare policy has not even been implemented yet. what's worse, the administration knew that they could never live up to this promise. and instead of finding a permanent solution to the problem, they proposed a political solution. today i'd like to highlight yet another broken promise made by the president that is resulting in sticker shock as many americans purchase health insurance. while campaigning for the presidency in his speeches leading up to the passage of obamacare, president obama promised the american people that their premiums would decrease by up to $2,500 per family. instead many families are facing

sticker shock. since enactment of obamacare, health care premiums have actually increased by more than $2,500 per family, that according to kaiser family foundation annual survey. as a result, many american families are sitting around their kitchen table trying to figure out how they're going to shift their finances around to afford health care when they were promised their premiums were going to go down by $2,500 per family. as the president has said this, law is more than just a web site. we agree with that. mr. president, this law is more than just a web site. this law is a series of broken promises that are resulting in higher premiums, higher deductibles and higher out-of-pocket costs for middle-class families. money that families could be using to help pay off student loans, save for a house or start a business. those are now going to be used to pay for government-approved health care. recent reports out this week by "the new york times" and "wall street journal" highlight the fact that deductibles and other

costs under obamacare have surged. the "wall street journal" reports the average individual deductible for a bronze level plan on the exchanges is over $5,000 a year. this means that a policyholder would need to pay over $5,000 in order for their insure torres start making payments. one of my constituents informed me her family's health insurance plan was canceled and the new policy she was offered would double their deductible to $5,000 per individual. she and her husband have three children. in addition to a higher deductible, this family faces higher premiums, higher co-payments and a higher out-of-pocket maximum. she goes on to say, please explain, please explain how this new coverage is considered affordable under the affordable care act. another couple in my state of south dakota informed me that in the form of an e-mail that their premiums were going up by $400 a month and the deductible was going up by $1,400 on their

policy. and their question was, what is the federal government doing? the gentleman said i feel like the federal government just stole $5,000 from me. that's the frustration that people across the country are feeling as a result of obamacare. the middle class is faced with higher costs while their take-home pay and hours are being reduced. as more americans begin to formulate their family budget for 2014 they're going to learn another promise by the president has been broken. not only are they losing the plan they were promised they could keep they're facing sticker shock over the increased cost of health care coverage. this flawed law will continue hitting middle-class americans in their pocketbooks as the nation's economy continues to struggle to regain its footing. the flawed rollout of obamacare is no secret. we have all seen what were described as the countless glitches associated with the rollout. but to make matters worse,

recent reports indicate that in october, one in four obamacare enrollees faced a glitch not many were aware of. this glitch called an 8-3en 4 error prevented insurers from receiving the properly information who believed they were enrolled in a health care plan. 25% of initial enrollees in obamacare after persevering through errors on a web site that was not ready for prime time may not have proper coverage come january 1 of 2014. what is even more troubling is the fact that the administration estimates that 10% of new enrollees will continue to face this problem. here we are, 23 days before january 1, and those who worked through the headaches of healthcare.gov may or may not have coverage. unfortunately, this administration continues to refuse to seriously address

these problems. and even though they have unilaterally delayed several portions of this law from taking effect and have previously failed to meet half of the requirements mandated by the law, the administration will not provide the same relief for the individual americans as it has for big businesses. mr. president, this law is fundamentally broken. and we need to start over. rather than expand the government's role in providing health care, we need to enact policies that make the private insurance market more competitive to insure that individuals and families have choices when it comes to their health care. the unfortunate reality for middle-class families is their premiums, their deductibles, their out-of-pocket costs under obamacare are not glitches. they are a harmful reality that is resulting in sticker shock for literally millions of americans. mr. president, we can do better. we should do better.

this is more than just a web site. it is the substance of this law that was built upon a faulty foundation that is leading to canceled policies, higher premiums, higher deductibles, higher taxes and fewer jobs and lower take-home pay for the american people. this is a direct shot at the heart of the american middle class. the president last week got up and made a speech where he talked about income i-quality and what he should should have focus 0ed on is to repeal this health care law. what is going to happen to middle-class families under this health care law is much higher costs, much lower take-home pay, many fewer jobs for them and for their children and a lower standard of living and lower quality of life than what they have enjoyed in the past. that will be the impact upon middle-class americans as a result of this law. mr. president, i yield the floor.

i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i take the floor again to discuss -- the presiding officer: senator, we're in a quorum call. mr. vitter: excuse me, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor to discuss what i call the washington exemption from obama. one of the few real victories for the american people i think we had in the obamacare debate was we actually got an amendment included in senate consideration

of the bill that said much of washington, all members of congress and all of our congressional staff have to go to the obamacare exchanges for our health care, just like millions of other americans. and we had to get it there. now, unfortunately, i guess this was an example of what nancy pelosi said when she said we need to pass the bill in order to understand what's in it. because after the obamacare statute passed with that very clear and very specific provision in it, a lot of folks around here read it and said, oh you know what. how are we going to deal with this? and there was a furious behind-the-scenes lobbying effort that began, went on for months to essentially get around that provision and the pain it would cause, the pain being subjecting members of congress

and all of our staff to the same circumstance, to the same experience as other americans. well, that ended with president obama getting personally involved and the obamacare issuing a special rule, and that rule is just an end run around the specific statutory provision. i think it's completely illegal for that reason because it is in conflict with that statutory provision. and one of the key things that rule says is, well, the statute says all official staff go to the exchange, but, you know, we really don't mean that. and so we're going to leave it up to each individual member to decide what staff are official, what staff go to the exchange or not. and as a result, there is a huge loophole that some members are using to exempt much, in some cases even all of their staff

from going to the exchange as mandated clearly by the obamacare statute so that we have to walk the walk of other americans, so that we have to share in that experience. sadly, the distinguished majority leader, mr. reid, is one of those members actively taking advantage of that loophole and exempting much of his staff, according to press reports, and because of that, i have written the majority leader today and asked him to answer some very important and straightforward questions about that situation, and so i think to make this point, i'll simply read this letter into the record. it was sent to the distinguished majority leader in the last several hours. "dear majority leader reid, it has been reported that you are the only member of top congressional leadership, house

and senate, democrat and republican, who has exempted some of your staff from having to procure their health insurance through the obamacare exchange, as clearly required by the obamacare statute. millions of americans are losing the health care plans and doctors they wanted to keep and are facing dramatic premium increases, all as washington enjoys a special exemption. given this, i ask you to publicly and in writing answer the four important questions below regarding your office's exemption. i will also be on the senate floor to discuss this at approximately 4:15 p.m. today and invite you to join me there. first, how did you designate each member of your staff, including your leadership staff, regarding their status as --quote, unquote -- official, going to the exchange, or --quote, unquote -- not

official, exempted from the exchange? did you delegate that designation to the senate disbursing office which would have the effect of exempting all of your leadership staff from going to the exchange? second, if any of your staff is designated as --quote, unquote -- not official, exempted from the exchange, are any of those staff members receiving official taxpayer funded salaries, benefits, office space, office equipment or any other taxpayer support? third, if any of your staff is designated as --quote, unquote -- not official, exempted from the exchange, did any of these staff members assist you in drafting or passing obamacare into law? if so, which staff members exactly? fourth, how are the above designations of yours consistent with the clear, unequivocal statement you made on

september 12? quote -- let's stop these really juvenile political games, the one dealing with health care for senators and house members and our staff. we are going to be part of the exchanges. that's what the law says and we will be part of that. close quote. i look forward to your clear written responses to these important questions. i also look forward to having fair up-or-down votes on the senate floor on my show your exemptions and no washington exemptions proposals in the new year. sincerely, david vitter." and i ask unanimous consent, mr. president, to submit this as part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. so, mr. president, that lays it out clearly. i think this is an important debate that the american people care about. as i said in the letter, millions of americans face real dislocation and pain under obamacare. they are losing in millions upon

millions of cases the health care plan they wanted to keep and that they were promised they could keep. they are losing their ability to see the doctor they love and that they were promised they could continue to see. that number in louisiana alone is 93,000 families. they faced skyrocketing premiums in many cases, and yet as all that goes on, washington enjoys this washington exemption from obamacare, and some members of congress in particular apparently, according to press reports, that includes the majority leader, mr. reid, are using this end run around the clear language of the obamacare law and exempting much of their staff. and so i think it's incumbent on the distinguished majority leader to come clean, to answer these four very legitimate, very

straightforward questions in an open, transparent, written and straightforward way. i'm sorry he couldn't join me on the floor right now to discuss it. i would welcome that conversation at any point in the near future, and i certainly look forward to his written responses to these questions. i think the american people deserve, at a very minimum, that, and i also think they deserve at a very minimum what i have been fighting for for months, fair up-or-down votes on my show your exemptions proposal and no washington exemptions from obamacare proposal. the first is real simple. it simply mandates that every member disclose how they are handling their office. same sorts of questions, goes to the same sort of information i'm asking directly of senator reid. the no washington exemptions from obamacare ends that end run around, ends that special

status, that special treatment for congress and our official staff and also would put in the same category going to the exchanges with no special treatment or subsidy the president, the vice president and their white house staff and political appointees. unfortunately, again, the majority leader has blocked all of my attempts to simply get a vote on these matters. i'm not asking everyone to agree with me. it's a free country. but i think i deserve a vote. i think the american people deserve a debate and a vote, and so i will continue fighting for fair up-or-down votes on the senate floor on both my disclosure proposal, show your exemptions, and the ultimate fix, no washington exemption from obamacare. so i'll continue that work, and i look forward to the majority leader's response to this letter. thank you, mr. president. with that, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call: